More than 86% of Americans own a mobile phone and you are most likely one of them. You are also most likely one of the consumers who have redeemed a coupon from your mobile phone or sent one of the 1.56 trillion text messages sent in 2010. Text messaging is becoming more popular than ever, and because of that you should be aware of the rise in a new form of marketing hitting the phone waves.

What may surprise you is that mobile marketing is not a new concept. Over the last several years we have seen its presence with the 'short code' technology. This option is very costly so many small businesses have not jumped into the world of marketing on the mobile phone. 2011 promises to be the year that mobile marketing expands and becomes a viable tool for businesses to reach consumers.

Businesses that would benefit from this type of marketing range from restaurants, resorts, gas & convenience stores to craft and hobby businesses. Virtually any business that is trying to reach their target market with promotions, discounts, specials, giveaways and events will benefit from mobile marketing because it works!

A concept that is changing is 'LBS' or location based marketing. In the recent past this has been acheived by businesses purchasing hardware that send out a signal that your mobile phone picks up with you are near their location through bluetooth. The signal opens up the businesses offerings when you are near their store. This has been a powerful tool but have found that many consumers do not keep their bluetooth active.

TMM ~ targetd mobile marketing ~ is a new concept that is changing the 'LBS' based marketing. Instead of using hardward combined with bluetooth companies are using texting. Texting is a more reliable tool that reaches everyone with a Internet ready mobile phone. One company has what a mobile APP called 'mCLUB' scheduled to be released April 15, 2011 which will assist not only consumers but businesses as well.

mCLUB will allow business to place their exclusive offers in a mobile APP, where the consumer can see who they are and what they offer and then store the offers conveniently inside the APP for future use. Not only that, mCLUB offers a way for businesses to build thie TMM marketing strategy by assisting in the promotion side.

mCLUB will allow consumers to find and keep offers they want in an organizes easy to manuever mobile APP. There will no longer be looking through emails and websites for the offers you want!

When this mobile APP is released I will post the barcode for everyone to be able to download and start using it! For the Android market installation will be from a QR barcode, so you will not even have to search for it!

The marketing strategy is changing drastically for the PDA/Smartphone world. My encouragement to you is to try new things. The changes are good. The changes are powerful. The changes will make using your smartphone easier.